


show me what you feel (cause I can't tell)

by elainebarrish



Category: Uncharted (Video Games)
Genre: F/F, i haven't played 4 or finished tll lmao, this is like disjointed idea ooc dialogue disjointed idea disjointed idea ooc dia-
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2019-10-02
Packaged: 2020-11-10 15:15:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20853869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elainebarrish/pseuds/elainebarrish
Summary: nadine is intense and she wants more and she doesn't think that's what Chloe wants, doesn't know what she wants, doesn't think it could really be her. she trusts her and she trusts them, together, but when they're not in the field she just can't figure out what she's thinking, can't figure out what any of this means.





	show me what you feel (cause I can't tell)

**Author's Note:**

> ok so uh armengard if u ever see this im free on thursday if you wanna hang out on thursday when im free. im joking but also basically ur fic is what made this exist im obsessed w ur chole/nadine bye
> 
> I've started and then not finished like at least two chloe/nadine fics since lost legacy came out and idk i wrote this one in like two days and i don't know how or why it happened and i don't think it's good but it's here now so ,,,,, yeah

She saves her life, sometimes, and sometimes it’s the other way around. Nadine sometimes is unsure whether this is really where she wanted to end up and sometimes Chloe thinks that maybe she really was always destined to be a lone wolf but both of these things are things that the other knows and maybe this works so well because they feel, because they both know them. The work because they’re not sure, maybe, or maybe it’s that they doubt sometimes but they never think of leaving, never think of giving this up. It could be an unwise venture; and sometimes it feels like that, when they’re sleeping in the jeep they’ve rented and they haven’t found whatever it is that they’re after; when they get close to running out of money because they don’t sell most of the things they find, just take the finder’s fee and hope they’ll find something eventually that they don’t think has cultural importance (it all does, all history does, and sometimes that’s a problem).

There’s problems, because there’s always problems, because that’s what this job is, really, just problems and their ability to get out of them, or to fix them, or just things that they have to shoot their way through. But that works for them too, because they’re  _ good _ at problem-solving, and getting so good at not running away from issues. Not so good at actually talking about things, but they’ll work that out eventually.

“Gimme a boost?” Nadine kneels, cups her linked hands, following Chloe without even thinking about it, because they don’t fight each other so much anymore. Nadine just follows her up through brute strength most of the time, even when Chloe thinks it should be impossible she just watches those shoulder muscles bunch and suddenly she’s right next to her.

“You think it’s in here?” Nadine asks, surveying a stone opening that looks like nothing, that looks like barely a room.

“You know how it goes,” Chloe grins at her. “There’s secret passageways all over the place.”

She’s right, because of course she is, and Nadine just asks questions mostly for the cocky grins these days, mostly because she knows Chloe likes to show-off a little, mostly because she likes it when she does. It’s an important part of their working relationship, this apparent doubt, and Chloe proving her wrong. It’s part of what they are, somehow, part of this whole thing that they’re doing, not that Nadine thinks she could tell someone what that is, not really, so a lot of the time she just doesn’t try. 

There’s honesty here, in the spaces between, and there’s trust and some form of unnamed affection that isn’t truly one-sided, but which Nadine knows she probably takes more seriously than Chloe does, because how is Chloe supposed to know that Nadine would never let anyone else be with her in any of the ways that Chloe is. Chloe is underneath her armour, Chloe is  _ here,  _ she’s touching her in ways that should be casual but can never be, not to Nadine, because she’s obviously not like that in any of the ways that Chloe definitely is. She’s not easy in her affection, she’s not a natural toucher, she’s not tactile, not in any of the ways that Chloe is.

Nadine knows her role, sees herself as the muscle even though Chloe always gets some sort of offended for her when she says so. This is Chloe’s job, her arena, and Nadine is good at shooting and moving heavy objects and throwing Chloe up to ledges she can’t reach by herself. She still thinks of those as very useful skills, but maybe Chloe talks about her biceps too much and it makes her feel some kind of guilty, like Nadine might think that she thinks that she’s just muscle and nothing else. Chloe forgets, sometimes, about how much Nadine values her ability to actually exercise something like risk management (she thinks, often, that her real contribution is getting them both home with no broken bones).

She’s the one who shoves Chloe to the floor when she steps on a booby trap and almost gets herself dismembered by a swinging axe, and also the one who sees the mechanical mechanism that loosens an arrow when Chloe picks up the artifact, the one that gets her out of the way of that, too.

“You’re getting very good at this whole traps thing,” Chloe says, later, when they’re driving back.

“Good reflexes,” Nadine says simply, smiling even as she doesn’t mean to, warmed even though Chloe always has been generous with her praise.

“I have good reflexes, you have something closer to superhuman ones,” she replies, glancing away from the road to grin at her, and it’s so warm Nadine thinks she might be blushing, even as she tries to shrug it off.

“I’m used to trying to dodge bullets,” she just points out, and Chloe rolls her eyes.

“You’ve been doing a good job of that too.”

“Thankfully we’ve had none of that today,” she smiles. “Can’t have you taking a bullet, Frazer, I bet you’d be a horrible patient.”

“Oh look, she’s astute too!” Chloe says, laughing. “At least this trip wasn’t a bust, I was beginning to think we were going to have to get real jobs.”

“What else is even in your wheelhouse?” Nadine asks, both teasing and curious, and she doesn’t think about how much she’s relaxed around her in the time since this partnership formed.

“I’ll have you know that I’ve had some good runs in customer service.”

“You’re too smart to have much luck in that for long,” she says, and she thinks she probably blushes because sometimes relaxing means she says things she means but didn’t quite mean to actually say.

“What about you?”

“I’d probably just find some mercenary work,” she shrugs, gruff, like it’d take back the warmness that she just offered.

“You are much better at taking orders than I am.” Chloe doesn’t mean it as a flirt, not really, but it comes out warm and low anyway.

“You’re getting better,” Nadine says, ignoring it, ignoring the way that Chloe looks at her, heavy and warm, just like she always does.

“I’m very flexible,” Chloe says, grinning, and Nadine rolls her eyes, not replying. “You only take orders from me these days, anyway,” she continues.

“Because we don’t work with other people,” Nadine points out, pretending like work is still what they’re talking about, because she doesn’t really understand what else they could be talking about, doesn’t really know what Chloe is getting out, what she thinks she knows.

“Exactly, we don’t  _ work _ with other people,” and there’s an inflection there, an emphasis that Nadine doesn’t understand, so she stays quiet, and leaves Chloe to whatever  _ that _ means.

“So where next?” Nadine asks, when they get back to their shitty motel room, dirty and aching and probably smelly (there’d been a rather muddy lake that they’d ended up in).

“There’s another temple in the area that I thought we could scout out tomorrow since we’re already here.”

“Sounds good,” Nadine says mindlessly, not really paying attention to anything but how her shirt sticks to her, itching and unpleasant. “You wanna shower first?” It’s more of a formality than anything else; Chloe always goes first, but she always waits until Nadine offers (Nadine knows she could go first if she wanted, but she’s too polite for that).

“You’re an angel,” Chloe says gratefully, grabbing clean clothes from her bag. “You wanna come with?” This is part of their dance too, Chloe pretending like this is just her flirting like always, Chloe pretending like something casual and stupid is what she wants with Nadine, even if they both know that that’s not true. Nadine just rolls her eyes and gingerly sits on the chair that doesn’t have any upholstery she can ruin, and Chloe shrugs and continues onwards to the en-suite.

“What would you do if I said yes?” Nadine asks, suddenly, surprising them both.

“I’d wash your back,” Chloe says, but slowly, like she’s treading carefully, like she’s pretending that this is just more flirting, her eyes still crinkled, her mouth still twisted in that particular mischevious grin.

“Go on, get out of here,” Nadine says softly, like Chloe’s failed a test that she didn’t even know she was taking, her face screwed up into an expression that Chloe can’t name.

“China-” she starts, not knowing what she’s going to say, but Nadine just waves a hand, ignoring all of the ways that Chloe has softened.

“Ignore me, honestly. Go shower, Chloe.”

They take turns in silence, and when Nadine’s finished braiding her hair she gets into bed next to Chloe, like normal, like they always do when they’re out treasure hunting. They have excuses, like that it’s safer and it’s cheaper, but they both know that that’s just something that they say.

“Nadine,” Chloe starts, quietly, after she’s turned to face her, and everything’s different in the dark and isn’t that just fucking unhelpful. She almost reaches out, almost touches Nadine’s bare shoulder, but isn’t that what got her in this mess in the first place? She’s always pushing, always making it clear that she’s interested, and she thought that maybe it had been working, because Nadine  _ had _ been warming to her, had been looking at her in a way that made her insides feel like mush.

“Look, I’m sorry, I know the flirting makes you uncomfortable and I shouldn’t keep on pushing you when I know that that’s not what you want. I’ll stop it, if that would make things easier for you.”

There’s silence, as Nadine takes a deep breath, as she thinks about what would happen if she was just honest, if she just Chloe that she wishes she meant it.

“No it’s fine,” she says, instead. “I know that that’s just how you do things,” she pauses, smiles, and hopes Chloe can hear it in her voice. “I knew that that’s what I was signing up for.” It doesn’t explain anything but Nadine can’t, she won’t. “I didn’t mean to respond weirdly earlier, I’m just tired and sore.”

“We can skip tomorrow, if you want? The finder’s fee from what we’ve already got should be enough to finance our next job.”

“No, honestly, I’ll be fine in the morning,” and she doesn’t want to go home straight after this, doesn’t want them to split up for a couple of weeks with this tension hanging in the air.

“If you’re sure,” she replies, quiet, uncertain, and she still wants to reach out, can feel the way that Nadine holds herself so rigidily right at the edge of the mattress like she hasn’t done in months, and she curses herself for not knowing what’s going on here. She always knows, out in the field, they work so well together that sometimes it’s almost scary, and she wishes that she was that good at knowing her the rest of the time.

They don’t stop running until they get back to the jeep, laughing with something like relief and surprise and in some kind of expression of the sheer weirdness that they’d encountered. Chloe knows temples and tombs and things of that ilk can be weird and some form of magic, has heard enough from Nate and seen enough herself to know that freaky stuff can happen out in the field. But statues, solid stone statues coming to life and attacking them? That one’s new. So they jump in and Chloe  _ drives _ , fast, ignoring the stone animals that throw themselves at the jeep until she manages to outpace them, and then her and Nadine share a look and they laugh, kind of terrified and definitely freaked out, but they’ve got it, got what they came for and a little bit extra, some fancy jewellery that they won’t feel bad about selling.

“So, uh, the statues are alive?” Nadine says, as she checks her pistol over, making sure the chamber is empty and the safety is definitely on.

“I’m never gonna get used to the weird stuff,” Chloe says, shuddering a little, knowing it’s going to be harder to shake off than just the regular greedy human foes.

“Did any of your research mention that?”

“It never does,” Chloe laughs, brilliantly alive like she always feels before the adrenaline seeps away.

“What even  _ were _ some of those? Stone guard dogs?” 

“Something like that,” Chloe agrees, not particularly thinking about what species their stone attackers had been modelled after. Nadine keeps quiet, brow furrowed, obviously thinking hard about it.

“Are you going to give me an  Anthrozoology lesson?”

Nadine laughs, shrugs. “I don’t know enough about it,” she tries not to blush, knowing that Chloe loves her interest in animals, knowing that she does, most of the time, care about what she has to say. “We’ll never know if they were supposed to be highly stylised or if there actually was a species that they were modelled after that existed at the time, anyway.”

“Isn’t it just so  _ irritating _ that there’s so much that we’ll never know?” Chloe’s so bright, so cheerful, so pleased by this lack of knowledge, even within her irritation. Nadine thinks it’s one of the things she loves about this job, both the knowledge that they discover, the webs that they unravel, and the things that they never find out.

“I’m getting very tired of making guesses,” Nadine says, seriously.

“This is the wrong field for someone who likes facts as much as you do.”

“I  _ know _ ,” Nadine groans, and they laugh, still high just on being  _ alive _ .

They get pizza, to celebrate, eating it quickly in their dirty clothes, and there’s still streaks of dust on Nadine’s face, sitting on the hardwood floor so they don’t dirty anything in the room.

“You just dripped grease on your shirt,” Nadine says, deadpan, knowing that you can barely see it through the sweat stains and dirt anyway, knowing that Chloe won’t care.

“Maybe it’ll counteract the dust,” Chloe says, mouth full, deliriously happy with fake tomato sauce and processed cheese. “What’s your favourite food?” she asks, suddenly, realising that they always get pizza in celebration, because that’s what Chloe’s happy place food is.

Nadine shrugs. “You know me, I eat pretty much anything.”

“Yeah but it’s your last meal and you can pick anything? What is it?”

Nadine thinks about it for a long moment, frowning. “Well you can’t really beat a good steak,” she says, keeping it simple.

“Makes sense,” Chloe nods, seriously. “Gotta make sure you keep your protein intake up for those guns.”

Nadine laughs and rolls her eyes, grimacing a little as Chloe wipes her greasy fingers on her already red t-shirt, leaning back on her hands, sighing in satisfaction.

“You can shower first,” she says, routine dictating they continue as normal, dictating that she acts like this is fine, that it’s okay, that it’s easy.

“Thanks China,” her smile softens. “My hero.”

Nadine tries not to blush as Chloe collects her things, as she pauses in the doorway, as she hesitates.

“Wanna join me?”

She just waves a hand, indicates she should continue, and doesn’t think about how she wants to go with her. She doesn’t trust her voice after yesterday, doesn’t breathe until the door clicks shut behind her.

She gets into bed, lies on her back and tries to convince her shoulders to relax, tries to act like everything is normal but it’s harder in the dark, harder to trust her body, to trust her words, to trust that they won’t betray her.

“Are you gonna tell me what happened yesterday?” Chloe asks, interrupting the quiet, interrupting what had been just the sounds of her breathing, because she has that insatiable curiosity, because she can never just leave things alone. Nadine had felt it coming, had felt her turn to face her and the way that she’d tensed before she’d spoken, heard the intake of breath.

“It was nothing,” she says, quieter than she meant to, in a way that she knows does nothing to convince Chloe that that’s true. “I meant it when I said I was just tired.”

Chloe sighs, frustrated, twisting the sheet in the dark, in the quiet. “I don’t know what you want,” she says eventually. “I know everything when I’m out in the field with you, everything you’re thinking, but I’ve got no idea in here.”

“I don’t want anything,” she lies, ignoring the way her tummy twists, ignoring the vulnerability in her voice, ignoring that she knows exactly what she wants. Chloe stays quiet like she’s waiting for something else, and Nadine looks at the shape of her, mostly shadow, eyes glinting in the light that seeps out around the curtains. She looks at the way her knees are drawn up and the way her face is aimed down, the way even her posture is vulnerable, and when she continues she’s almost whispering. “I know the flirting is something you do with everyone but I just…” she trails off, tries not to think about how maybe this could ruin them, takes a deep breath. “Do you mean it?”

Chloe almost laughs, because she’s so goddamn surprised. “Of course, love,” her voice is soft, but even, because she thought Nadine knew, thought her awkwardness could have been a lack of reciprocation, was her just not knowing what to do with Chloe’s bright-eyed interest.

“But you flirt with everyone,” she says, weakly, mostly just confused.

“Yeah but,” she pauses, licks her lips. “With most people I’d have given up by now, I’d have moved on.” She shrugs, and Nadine feels it more than she sees it. “Both professionally and personally.”

Nadine is quiet, because she doesn’t know whether that means something or not, doesn’t know whether that means what she wants it to. “You still flirt with Drake,” she says, sounding about twelve, and she flushes in the darkness.

“Do you actually think that I don’t mean it when I flirt with you? That I’m messing with you, or something?” And Nadine realises, now, how that sounds, how that makes Chloe sound. “Because I’ve never been messing with you.” She’s serious, some kind of stern that Nadine’s never seen from her, something that she doesn’t recognise in her voice.

“Oh,” she says, quietly, timidly, and she rolls over to face her like that’ll help her see in the dark. “I don’t really know what I thought,” she sighs. “I want you to mean it,” is what she eventually says, firm, like she’s not some kind of terrified.

They’re quiet for what feels like a long time, like they’re not really sure where to go from there. 

“Well you’re in luck,” Chloe says eventually, cheerfully.

Chloe, if anything, flirts even more the next day, and it still feels like nothing’s been sorted because Nadine doesn’t know how to explain the other half of it, the part of her that feels like she wants something  _ more _ than what the flirting promises. She wants the whole thing, wants to spend all of her time with Chloe, wants to protect her and fuck her and love her. And that’s not what flirting means, certainly not when she knows that Chloe is extremely casual, casual in ways that Nadine never has been. The main difference, as they try to arrange buyers and returning the artifacts to the government bodies that want them, is that Chloe is met with blindingly hot blushes every time she says something, practically, because most of what she says to Nadine is some form of double entendre, because Chloe loves the way that she blushes all the way down her neck, loves the way even her ears warm up. It’s basically dinner-time when they finish up, and they walk past a bar and grill and Chloe grins.

“They’ll have steak,” she says, pointing and turning Nadine towards it. “Looks like it’s impromptu date night,” she says, and Nadine tries not to grin at the idea, tries to pretend like she isn’t bothered by the thought, tries to pretend like it isn’t exactly what she wants.

Nadine is nervous, fidgety and anxious, and Chloe can feel it coming off of her in waves, so she studies her menu, gives Nadine a chance to take a few deep breaths, doesn’t know it’s because Nadine doesn’t know what this means, doesn’t know it’s because the table’s so small their knees are almost touching underneath it. It’s  _ intimate _ in a way that she wasn’t expecting, but by the time the server comes over Nadine basically has her vibrating under control (it helps that she’s had some time to subtly scope out all of the exits and the couple of other patrons).

“Well this is cute,” Chloe says, once he’s gone, with that one particular grin.

“I wouldn’t have thought it was seedy enough for you,” Nadine says, thinking of the pictures Chloe’s sent her from nights out, both at home and with the Drakes.

“I have different standards for dates,” she’s smug, somehow, and Nadine just thinks that she has no idea what’s going on.

“Does that mean you’re paying?”

Chloe looks surprised, then grins. “I can’t believe you’re taking me a date and you expect me to pay.”

Nadine laughs. “You literally pushed me in here I don’t think I’m doing the taking.”

“I’m sure you’ll be the one doing the taking later,” Chloe says, sweetly, and she savours the harsh intake of breath and the deep blush that she gets from her.

“I don’t know about you, but I don’t tend to put out on the first date.” Somehow this is  _ fun _ and easier than she’s used to, and when the server, who’s quite cute, comes back with a bottle of red, Chloe barely even looks at him, and Nadine realises that Chloe’s barely looked at  _ anyone _ , really, since they started this whole thing.

“You won’t even make an exception for me?” Chloe pouts and Nadine thinks that that pout might be her most compelling argument.

“Next time actually ask me on the date and maybe I’ll consider it,” she pours their wine, one that pairs well with steak, and Chloe thanks her.

They crash back into their room after two bottles of wine, flushed and warm, and they both fling themselves onto the bed, on their backs, without thinking about it.

“Thank you,” Nadine says, quietly, seriously, because Chloe had paid in the end, ignoring Nadine when she’d attempted to insist that they split it.

“No problem,” she says, easily, warmly, smirking at her. They’re quiet for a moment. “Do you believe me now?” she asks, out of the blue, and Nadine blinks, confused.

“About what?”

“That I mean it.”

Nadine sighs, licking wine stained lips. “It’s not that it’s…” she doesn’t know if she can say it, but she knows that she has to, knows that Chloe has been honest and she should be too. “I’m not casual about things, and I know that you are - I’m not saying that that’s a bad thing,” she says, quickly, even though Chloe hadn’t reacted. “So for me flirting means… more than something casual, because that’s not what I want.”

Chloe almost makes a joke about how she didn’t realise that flirting is tantamount to a proposal, but she stops in her tracks when she realises that she’s not horrified by the idea. “When we first met I was obviously interested mostly in what those muscles could do but,” she pauses. “I really like you, Nadine, and I feel about twelve years old saying it like that.” It’s worth it though, for the way that she grins at her, shy but excited, and Chloe almost has to look away because Nadine’s expression is intense and hopeful and sweet and warm all at once.

“We should go on more dates,” she says, keeping it simple, and Chloe nods, firmly. “And I should say thank you properly.” She rolls over, slides a hand into Chloe’s hair, kissing her soft and quick and sweet, smiling against her lips. Chloe’s never really wooed anyone before, but she thinks that this might be worth it. 


End file.
